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Battle Splits Conservative Magazine

FOR the decade since its founding by the neoconservative thinker Irving Kristol, The National Interest has been a central forum for the most influential conservative foreign policy thinkers of all stripes to hash out their differences. It launched ideas that entered the public policy vernacular, like "the end of history," "the West and the rest," and "geo-economics," and for the last six months it has played host to a closely watched intramural conservative debate over the wisdom of the war in Iraq.

Now, however, a philosophical disagreement within its editorial board has put its future in turmoil. On Friday, 10 well-known board members, including the conservatives Midge Decter, Samuel P. Huntington and Francis Fukuyama, announced their resignations, saying they disagreed with the narrowly realist foreign policy of its new owner, the Nixon Center.

At issue is the perspective laid out in the most recent issue by Robert F. Ellsworth, vice chairman of the Nixon Center, a "realist" foreign policy research group that acquired sole control of the journal last year, and Dimitri K. Simes, president of the center and co-publisher of the journal. In an editorial headlined "Realism's Shining Morality," they wrote: "Overzealousness in the cause of democracy (along with a corresponding underestimation of the costs and dangers) has led to a dangerous overstretch in Iraq," arguing that United States interests may sometimes require cooperation with undemocratic regimes.

The mass resignation is the latest round in a fierce debate on the right over the invasion. It is also the latest high-profile fight picked by Mr. Fukuyama, a prominent neoconservative and the author of "The End of History."

Last fall, he helped set off that debate with an essay in The National Interest calling his fellow neoconservatives "strangely disconnected from reality" for their continued celebration of the Iraq occupation as a success. Foreign policy realists, who question the necessity of the war, cheered his apparent defection.

In leading the defections from The National Interest, however, Mr. Fukuyama is aiming in the other direction: he is accusing its publishers of squeezing out liberal or neoconservative arguments about the universal appeal of democracy and the importance of spreading democracy to America's self-interest.

"What we liked about the old National Interest was the variety of viewpoints that it published," Mr. Fukuyama wrote in a letter signed by all 10 departing board members. "We do not have confidence that this kind of editorial policy can long be retained by a magazine with a mandate to represent the interests of the Nixon Center."

Upon receiving the letter, the publishers of the journal sent their own letter dissolving the advisory board, which had two remaining members, the neoconservative columnists Charles Krauthammer and Daniel Pipes. "I think this group, frankly, belongs to the past, and we wanted to have some changes," said Mr. Simes, adding that there was no plan to narrow the range of contributors.

Mr. Simes accused Mr. Fukuyama of self-aggrandizement, saying he had previously offered to bring new financing to the journal if he could take control. "To me, it looks like a failed takeover," Mr. Simes said.

In an interview, Mr. Fukuyama said that, to carry on the debate about the war in Iraq and American foreign policy, he now planned to start another journal, The American Interest, with three others from the National Interest board: Zbigniew Brzezinski, a liberal and President Carter's former national security adviser; Eliot A. Cohen, a military scholar and neoconservative, and Josef Joffe, a leading German editor.

"In the wake of Iraq, I think there is going to be this fight over what a certain conservative foreign policy is, and I personally don't want to see the realists walking about with a lot of moral authority at this point," Mr. Fukuyama said.

But he said the new journal would not hew to any ideological line; instead, it will try to look at American actions in a global context. "It's about America in the world, how it ought to behave and what the consequences of its actions are," he said. "Everyone in the world is preoccupied with the United States, and they feel they don't understand it, and we want to help them with that."

He said the new journal, which will initially be financed by a Boston venture capitalist, will also publish perspectives on American policies from foreigners who may feel the effects of American actions.

William Kristol, editor of the neoconservative Weekly Standard and son of Irving Kristol, said he welcomed the planned journal. "My father said many times, the more journals, the better," he said. "Soon there are going to be more neoconservative magazines than there are neoconservatives."

Correction: March 20, 2005, Sunday An article last Sunday about differences among the editorial board members of The National Interest, a conservative magazine, misstated the number of members who remained after 10 resigned. Six remained, not two.

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A version of this article appears in print on March 13, 2005, on Page 4004012 of the National edition with the headline: Ideas & Trends; Battle Splits Conservative Magazine. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe